


The Magic Kind

by sugarby



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Howl's Moving Castle Fusion, Alternate Universe - Magic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 01:36:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19937899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarby/pseuds/sugarby
Summary: He lives in a small, countryside-market town, the kind where a foot past the front threshold earns a neighbourly greeting, and eighty-percent of the population is made up of the supernaturally gifted or humanoid.Despite all that, Leorio considers himself quite normal.But the patient currently in his care and lying unconscious on the bed in the backroom...isn't.(OR a doctor has his obsessive normality upturned by the arrival of his latest patient—a notorious wizard).





	The Magic Kind

**Author's Note:**

> A scene from an idea for a two-shot I scrapped a while ago and converted to just this.
> 
> _Insp by my favourite Studio Ghibli movie._

In this world, there's an abundance that can be considered normal and abnormal. The logic behind the deciding factor of what belongs where lies in inspection, closely looking at things apart and together. Something that's normal by itself but affiliated with an abnormality will in turn become that itself, see.

So to continue being classified as 'normal', it's best to steer clear of whatever isn't. This is the philosophy Leorio Paladiknight tries to follow thoroughly, and twenty-so years of success in that allow him to confidently say he fits the criteria.  
  
He lives a normal life. His above-average lanky body is covered by a fine-fitting, normal suit of dark blue colour, and his eyes are kept behind the tinted frames of minuscule tea-shades.

He has a normal career in medicine and is the doctor of his own business—simultaneously his place of living situated atop a hill that's suspended among the clouds by the work of high-tech, large propellers. He gets around with a briefcase in tow—filled with what, no one's sure, just that it's unintentionally taken the mantle of being his inanimate sidekick.   
  
He lives in a small, countryside-market town, the kind where a foot past the front threshold earns a neighbourly greeting, and eighty-percent of the population is made up of the supernaturally gifted or humanoid.  
  
Despite all that, Leorio considers himself quite normal.  
  
Yet he patient currently in his care and lying unconscious on the bed in the backroom _isn't_.

> _He'd been led in half-draped over the shoulder of a boy. Immediately, he illuminated the room; hair uprooted like streaks of lightning, eyes sharp like a cat and a bluer sapphire than the actual gemstone, he was everything Leorio would never pair with normal._
> 
> _"I can't treat him." Leorio said straightaway, meaning every word and swallowing the clot of bitter self-loathing down like a pill._
> 
> _He lost a friend years ago when they were too young to understand that with magic came disaster they, ordinary humans, couldn't quell. Not with all the money they didn't have but swore they'd save up for, and not with all the hospital equipment that existed._
> 
> _"There are other doctors you should go to."_
> 
> _The boy rolled a shoulder to support the body slipping on top, "You were the closest."_
> 
> _"I only treat ordinary people."_
> 
> _The boy snorted, so loud and obnoxious that it made Leorio double-take, and crouched to unravel the body from on top like a carpet._
> 
> _Leorio instinctively caught them in open arms._
> 
> _The boy was already on his way out, "Just let him rest while I buy our supplies, I'll be back in a minute."_

  
Leorio hadn't the will to argue with a child.

He ought to have though. Remain uninvolved with supernatural matters, spare his patients and himself the disappointment later but here he is, anxious in a chair beside the bed, leg jittering while he waits for any sign of coherence; of the grand life that must undoubtedly drive the patient to whatever lead him to this state.

A reason to stop the unprofessionally long stare. Leorio can't help but note the length of those eyelashes. The sweeping of golden hair—long and colourless when he arrived but magically changed after being laid to rest, the hair receding to shoulder length and brightening like a golden dawn of morning.

At the eventual awakening, a slow rise from slumber and lift in to an easy sitting position, Leorio straightens himself out. Pulls out the end of his blazer to dissolve creases, fixes his slouch, uncrosses his legs and clears his throat.

What question he conceives to ask is wiped clean when those scarlet eyes find him.

"I, uh, I'm Leorio— _Doctor Leorio_ if you like. Take it easy, you might have a concussion."

The patient touches their head, squints, "I'm gathering that from the pain."

"What's your name?"

"Kurapika."

"Okay, Kurapika," Leorio gestures to the side of the patient's abdomen where a murky-coloured bruise is emitting a glowing veil. "That looks nasty."

Kurapika presses a palm to it in dismissal, "It's nothing. I was struck with bad magic.”  
  
"No kidding.”

Getting a good, closer look, Leorio's mind pushes to the front the glances he gave to the wanted posters around town.

 _'—The bloodthirsty—30,000,000 jenny reward'_ from the main details in big, bold lettering. The rest is heresy he unintentionally overheard while out and about, a summoner-wizard kid making it so another wizard can't use siphon magic anymore.

Uh, what was it now...a _Kurama? Kurollo?_ No _, Crayola_? Oh, whatever.

"Usually I wouldn't have helped you out—"

"I don't think I asked for it."

Kurapika isn't able to recall what transpired before now but he knows himself and can confidently say that he isn't the type to ask or accept help from friend or stranger. It's a prideful loner thing he has no intention of reigning in.  
  
" _No_ but your friend dragged in you here expecting me to do _something_."  
  
"Well you wouldn't have been the first person to turn the likes of me away."  
  
"I could care less about your _reputation_. I'm just your average doctor."  
  
"Who lives on a _floating_ hill."

"Yeah, well, it was conveniently cheap."

And he was so eager, after graduating with his license, to get his business off the ground—pun intended.

" _Of course_ it was because no one sane would willingly live here otherwise."

"Shut up and drink this." Leorio thrusts a cup in to his hands. "I can't do none of that witchy-woo crap," his fingers do a fluttering dance and the implication on top of the disrespectful term earns him a glare, "But I can do painkillers and tea with rejuvenating properties."

Kurapika hums and stares in to the cup at his own reflection.

Pondering, if Leorio has ever seen it. And he has, quite often though the reflection is his and less exhausted. "Hey, look, it's none of my business but whatever you're up to—this path you’re on? It's gonna ruin you.”

“Too late for that.”

“Your tea'll get cold.”

There are much more pressing matters than tea. As aware of that as ever, that any moment of rest or second of foolish relief can very quickly lead to his undoing, to being bound and tied in imprisonment, he takes no chances with the doctor at his side.

"You're really not a wizard?"

Leorio presents open palms, "No magic whatsoever."

 _'Course not'_ , Kurapika reconsiders now because most attempts to capture him have begun with hostile ambushes by other wizards trying to leave him little to no chance to cast a spell. Everyone else, the ordinary citizens, they dial the right authorities and pray.

"Are you going to turn me in?"

“I’m not interested in that.”

“Is that true, Mr Leorio?”

Leorio sighs, "Let's imagine I try to restrain you first, yeah? You'll only use magic on me to get away. Now let's imagine you don't, I'd assume it's because you haven't recovered and sending you in to some bad guy's would be heartless of me. And third, like I said, I'm your average doctor. I leave myself out of magical stuff as much as I can.”

"The handsome bounty on my head doesn't interest you?"

"I love money as much as the next guy but not at the expense of sacrificing someone.”

Kurapika's shoulders deflate, “You're kind, Mr Leorio." He picks up the cup and drinks the entire contents.

"Come on, you're making me feel old." Leorio sighs, leans back on the bench and stares up at the sky. "All this overtime caused stress lines just makes me look older than my twenties."

"I understand. I'm almost twenty but already—"

"The heck?! And you're a notorious wizard on the run?!"  
  
"'Kurapika The Blood-Thirsty', they call me. I'm out for revenge against the bastards who slaughtered my entire family."

"That why you're hurt so bad?" Leorio waits, watches the way Kurapika's lips curl in refusal. "As the doctor who helped you, I have a right to know."

“All you did was give me tea."

“With _rejuvenating_ properties, _you’re welcome_!”

Kurapika groans lightly, applying slight finger pressure to the bruise, a weightless glow emitting from the tips in curative blessing to the sore skin.

It doesn't take away the scarring but dulls the pain; doesn't let him forget but will allow him the experience to learn from. 

Certain the doctor won't let up on the third degree, he says, "All I'm willing to tell you is that there's evil running loose that needs to be cursed to hell."

Literally, with a fury of words from his mother tongue—a _dead language_ no-one can replicate, and therefore barely fight against. He does the cursing, so he thought little of the chance that it would happen to him.

"Why?"

"They deserve it." A darker red fills in to Kurapika's eyes leading to the depths of a pure and raw emotion, of sorrow and scorn. "They're evil running loose that should be cursed to hell."

"Have you ever considered therapy?"

"This isn’t a _joke._ ”

"But I'm definitely missing the punchline here."

"Holy crap, you actually don't look half dead anymore."

Leorio supposes he heard something like a door opening but was too deep in arguing to bother looking back and just suspected it might be another patient.

Instead it's the boy from before he brought Kurapika here, a bag of supplies strung over a shoulder. Leorio double-takes, recognising the second boy beside him, that hairstyle and curious expression on every little thing in the world familiar anywhere.

What are they doing together?!

Kurapika says, "You didn't need to leave me here, Killua. I was fine. I would've—"

"Been stubborn and acted like it didn't hurt like hell."

"We don't have time for detours."

Leorio stands and walks away from them, whistles and gestures to the other boy to come over, "Gon, you know that kid?"

“Sort of." Gon replies. "I met him in the market and helped him buy some stuff." he grapples on to Leorio's arm, creasing the sleeve while he visibly vibrates, "He’s a _wizard_! Isn't that cool?!"

" _Dangerous_ more like. Pft! _Who knows what_ this brat's capable of when he's traveling with a notorious curser."

Killua's ears are shaper than they imagine, “Jeez, thanks. Gon, your uncle's a buzzkill.”

Gon laughs, "He's my brother, silly."

"Shit, really?" Killua looks him up, down, "He looks old!"

Leorio suppresses the urge to scream and bristle at yet another person mistaking him for much older than he actually is.

Kurapika throws off the sheets, climbing out the bed, "Killua, it's time."

Leorio steps in front of him, "Wait, I've got unfinished business with you."

“You’ll have to get in line.” He steps right.

Leorio follows stubbornly and soon they're in a messy dance of sidesteps until both standstill in a stare-off.

"When someone helps you, you should say thanks.”

Kurapika dips a hand in to a pocket of his blazer, pulling out a chequebook and fountain pen. He scribbles on it, tears it off and hands it over, "That should be enough. I'm not familiar with the price of tea in this town but I imagine—"

Leorio snatches it, "Not enough zeros in the world to deal with you." he mutters to himself.

He reads the number, gapes. Reads it again with a squint and thinks he's losing his mind...because the ink is moving? The numbers are gathering to the centre and joining to a formless splotch, drooping and sloppy and dribbling across the page to his thumb.  
  
“The ink's sentient but harmless.”  
  
" _Unlike you_ then."  
  
"The same can be said for your manners and common sense."

Leaving the doctor to stomp his feet about, Kurapika walks to the edge of the hill by the steep staircase that descends down in to the town and its stalls. They're high up enough for chatter to be distant and the citizens below to only be heads. Kurapika lifts a hand, chattering in low volume.

Small shimmers descend like rain in just the spot in front of him, bringing down the illusion of the town's landscape and presenting a door. A door to painted wall. Brick wall belonging to a rounded aircraft with a tail-end.  
  
Leorio's jaw drops, "The hell?!"  
  
"Whoa!" Gon gapes in awe, "Was that here the whole time?!"  
  
"Cloaking spell." Kurapika explains, "I can't leave my house exposed for anyone to find."  
  
"Your house is a _blimp_?" Leorio questions. "And you gave _me_ shit for living on a floating hill?!"  
  
" _I_ dabble in magic, you're just an average doctor. Or am I wrong?"

Leorio crosses arms with a huff. He vows to himself not to care about whatever's going on but his curiosity takes charge and he watches Kurapika from the corner of his eye.

Then he turns for full focus, jaw dropping lower than before at the interior of the blimp—a staircase, furniture, more than a couple rooms, a ceiling high enough for a fancy chandelier?! 

Kurapika stands before it all with a spread arm, "Would you like to come in for some tea?"

Leorio turns his head. He should do the right thing—the _normal_ thing and say no thanks and waltz right back inside his place.  
  
Even so,

He crosses the steps over the hill and enters inside, a thoughtful moment spent on a goodbye to his fleeting ‘normality’.


End file.
